Mark McGhee fears he now has little hope of luring Stephen Hughes to Aberdeen.

The Dons boss is keen to strengthen his squad ahead of his first season at the Pittodrie helm and had identified Hughes has a key target, having worked with the midfielder during their time together at Motherwell.

He said: "The players who have been mentioned in the press - Stephen Hughes, Steven MacLean and Jim Paterson - are all players in an ideal world we would bring here, they are all good players. But Stephen Hughes has apparently turned down a big money move to an English club, therefore it puts him out of our price range."

He added: "I would therefore say it is very unlikely Stephen will come here.

"The other two are players I like, players we could work with, but I do have other options abroad before I make any decisions."

McGhee revealed he now intends to use the pre-season trip to Austria to have a closer look at potential new recruits.

He told RedTV: "I have several trialists lined up and they will be joining us at various stages during our trip out there. At the moment there are three or four who are foreign and one who is British.

"I have a finite amount of money to spend on new players so I am going to be very careful in how I am going to spend it in terms of the quality of players and also in the positions.

"So I want to go to Austria and learn about what I have myself here first before I start spending money in an area I don't have to spend."